I know you like to romanticise the idea of me lying awake at night thinking of all the things we should have done and all the things I should have said.

But I don’t. I sleep like I’m dead. I’ve slept through break-ins and police sirens and 3 am arguments and almost-break ups. I sleep the same way I did before and after you barrel-rolled into my life with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a plethora of expletives shooting out your mouth. It’s like I”m still catching up on everything I lost during the era of you. Even when we weren’t speaking I’d wake up to the scent of your Marlboros sneaking through my cracked window. Like those cigarettes, you are impossible to shake off.

I’ve stopped thinking everything is a sonnet. You know I used to stare my worst nightmare in the face and pour poetry down his throat until I’d convinced myself it was love. I’d write essays about his hands wrapped around my wrists and turn his sharp insults into feathers. I used to think everything broken was beautiful and everything toxic was medicinal.

I know you loved being a part of my life because it made you feel less alone. But you forgot that I get lonely too.